Project 1001: Talk Talk Talk by The Psychedelic Furs
She's pretty in pink / Isn't she? / Pretty in pink / Isn't she?
The Psychedelic Furs is one of those bands that a certain group of friends I had back in the day were gaga over. These were they kind of guys who had disdain for anything popular and needed to find bands that nobody heard of before them. Or at least that’s what they fronted. I always felt that deep down those guys loved the Top 40 as much as anybody else but admitting so would damage their too-cool-for-school bona fides. But that doesn’t mean the music they were craving wasn’t good. As Talk Talk Talk shows lots of the “cool kids” music was in fact excellent.
That said, I wasn’t a fan. I didn’t have any problem with the Furs. It’s just that in 1981 I was just getting into the world of hard rock and heavy metal, maybe the polar opposite of bands like the Psychedelic Furs. I remember lots of animosity between the rockers and the new wavers.
So, all I really know about the Furs is “Pretty in Pink”, an all-time new wave classic. Not just a new wave classic, but a pop music classic. That’s a song that of course reminds me of the John Hughes film of the same name.1 A movie I never liked at all. Going into today’s album my disdain for the movie put my attitude leaning toward negative territory.
The negativity was quickly purged with the opener (at least on the UK version) “Dumb Waiters.” It’s aggressive and loud and set full of attitude setting up “Pretty in Pink” which draws you in with its sly lyrics sung by Richard Butler in his distinctive punk-but-not-too-punk style.
Besides “Pretty in Pink” another song I liked is “Into You Like a Train”. That’s a song title that bashes you over the head as a metaphor2 but has great energy.
The song that got me hooked the most on this particular listen is “All Of This And Nothing”. At first it seems like songwriter and lead singer Richard Butler is simply listing things left behind in the wake of a failed relationship. Household items and memories sparked by them like a knife and a fork, a painting, clothing, dominos, etc.
Then the last verse hits and makes me do a 180.
A visit from your doctor
He crawls in through the door
A mirror you can look in
So that you know where you are
Now I start thinking he’s talking about someone who’s died of a drug overdose. A “doctor” crawling through the door could mean a dealer who works in the shadows. They sneak in by crawling through (or maybe under) the door rather than walking in through a wide-open door like someone would do if they are operating legitimately and in the light of day.
People often snort cocaine off a mirror. And for someone lost and perhaps on the verge of losing themselves to drug addiction that mirror could be useful to help them look at themselves; really examine where they are and try to figure out why they are so unsatisfied or unhappy that they are using drugs so much.
This verse caused me to abandon my initial thoughts that Butler is lamenting a woman who left him, and he can’t quite work out why to thinking he is grieving the loss of his lover. Losing her to drugs makes no sense to him if we understand that whatever pain was causing her to take enough drugs that would kill her was not evident to him.
A less sinister interpretation reads the doctor as a counselor or psychiatrist who crawls in through the door of the mind and is metaphorically a mirror who helps the patient understand where they are. Maybe after sessions with this doctor Butler’s lover realized she was unhappy with the relationship. And maybe she left without explanation; at least without one that could be understood by Butler.
The doctor is probably someone or something else entirely, but it’s a great thing when we can construe lyrics in multiple ways. Then again, I could be reading too much into it! For me it is the gem of this album. Let me know what you think.
Butler once called it the Furs’ definitive song.
It pulls it all together. Musically it's very Psychedelic Furs and I like the way it comes in with the acoustic guitar and also leaves with an acoustic guitar, and in between, it's very, very Psychedelic Furs-sounding. It has all the musical elements that you associate with this band.
And lyrically, I like the fact that the verses are very abstract and they're pulled together by the chorus. You only realize what it's really about when you listen to the chorus, because before the chorus comes in it's just a list of really odd things.3
I like the album a lot. No duds among the tracks although a couple songs sound very early 80s and don’t hold up quite so well. My rating:
Ken Tucker’s 4-star review for Rolling Stone noted:
The pleasure of Talk Talk Talk is that we can hear the Psychedelic Furs acting out their adolescence, a time when talk, talk, talk with a girl is a terribly frustrating–and terribly exciting–thing to do. The boys complain with winning self-pity ("She has got it in for me Yeah I mean it, honestly She's so mean"), yet they also court maturity in their music. That song about the mean girl, for example, is tucked into a big, undulating howl of guitar reverberation, saxophone tremors and steady, menacing drumming. The Furs never fully grow up on this record, but that only leads to wonderful moments.4
Lloyd Cole has a wonderful Substack piece (go read the whole thing) about the album rating it 9 out of 10 and concludes, “The band that refuses to be a rock pop band makes an almost perfect rock pop album.”5
In 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Alexandra Heller-Nichols wrote:
Their second album, Talk, Talk, Talk is their finest moment. Their influence can be traced across the spectrum, with elements of their approach appearing in everything from Ryan Adams to the vocal style of VNV Nation….it is clear why Talk, Talk, Talk gave the band their first U.S. chart entry and made them one of the most significant but underrated British rock bands of the 1980s.6
Enjoy and listen without prejudice.
“And just remember, different people have peculiar tastes”
~ Lou Reed
Cheers!
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For details about this project, read this: Project 1001 Albums
Charts
• Peak on Billboard 200 album chart: #89 7
• Singles on Billboard Hot 100 chart: Not hit singles from Talk Talk Talk but “Pretty in Pink” peaked at #41 in 1986 from the movie soundtrack. 8
• RIAA certification: n/a
Released on May 15, 1981. Here’s what else was happening:
Pop Culture
• Number one song: “Morning Train (9 to 5)” by Sheena Easton9
• Number one album: Paradise Theatre by Styx10
• Number one movie: Back Roads by Martin Ritt11
• Most watched TV programs: Dallas, Dukes of Hazzard, 60 Minutes, M*A*S*H, The Love Boat12
• NYT bestseller, fiction: Noble House by James Clavell13
• NYT bestseller, non-fiction: Never-Say-Diet Book by Richard Simmons14
Some other albums released that month
• Hard Promises by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
• Shock Tactics by Samson
• The One That You Love by Air Supply
• Computer World by Kraftwerk
• Balin by Marty Balin
• Nightclubbing by Grace Jones
• Shut Up 'n' Play Yer Guitar by Frank Zappa
• Breaking All the Rules by Peter Frampton
• It Must Be Magic by Teena Marie
• East Side Story by Squeeze
• Long Distance Voyager by The Moody Blues
• Knights of the Sound Table by Cameo
• The Fox by Elton John
• Hard 'n' Heavy by Anvil
• Heaven Up Here by Echo & the Bunnymen
• In Concert by Amy Grant
• Present Arms by UB40
• Tinsel Town Rebellion by Frank Zappa
• As Falls Wichita, so Falls Wichita Falls by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays
• Beyond the Valley of 1984 by The Plasmatics
• Mecca for Moderns by The Manhattan Transfer
• Wild Gift by X15
Sport
• May 14 35th NBA Championship: Bost Celtics beat Houston Rockets, 4 games to 2.
• May 16 106th Preakness: Jorge Velásquez aboard Pleasant Colony wins in 1:54.6.
• May 21 Stanley Cup Final, Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY: NY Islanders win back-to-back titles; beat Minnesota North Stars, 5-1 for 4 games to 1 series win.16
Notable Births
• May 5 Craig David, English R&B singer-songwriter ("7 Days"; "Insomnia"), born in Southampton, Hampshire, England.
• May 12 Rami Malek, American Oscar-winning actor (Bohemian Rhapsody), born in Los Angeles, California.
• May 15 Jamie-Lynn Sigler, American actress (Meadow Soprano in The Sopranos), born in Jericho, New York.17
Historical Events
• 11 May 1981 Bob Marley's Passing: End of a Musical Legend: Renowned Jamaican singer-songwriter Robert Nesta 'Bob' Marley passed away from skin cancer at the age of 36, marking the end of an era for reggae music and global cultural activism. His death was a profound loss for music and social justice movements worldwide.
• 13 May 1981 Assassination Attempt on Pope John Paul II: On May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot and critically wounded by Mehmet Ali Ağca in St. Peter's Square, Rome. The assassination attempt shocked the world and raised significant questions about the Pope's safety and the motivations behind the attack. The Pope was rushed to the Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinic for emergency surgery and miraculously survived the shooting.
• 22 May 1981 Key Break in Atlanta Child Murders Investigation: A critical breakthrough occurred in the Atlanta Child Murders investigation when FBI agents and Atlanta police observed Wayne Williams near a bridge on the James Jackson Parkway. After witnessing a suspicious incident involving a white Chevrolet station wagon and hearing a splash, they placed Williams under surveillance. Two days later, the body of Nathaniel Cater was discovered in the river, significantly advancing the investigation into the serial killings.18
Notable Deaths
• May 5 Irish IRA member and leader of the hunger strike at Maze Prison, dies in the 66th day of his hunger strike at 26.
• May 17 Hugo Friedhofer, American cellist, orchestrator, and Academy Award-winning film composer (The Best Years of Our Lives; An Affair to Remember), dies from complications of a fall at 80.
• May 18 William Saroyan, American novelist and stagewriter (Time of your life), dies at 72.19
A really good soundtrack!
My favorite use of the train as sex metaphor is from the movie North By Northwest. (spoiler alert!)
Heller-Nicholas, Alexandra, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Fifth printing, ed. by Robert Dimmery p. 479.
Ibid.
Ibid.